[i]Will be? I kinda thought that I already was strong.[/i] Whitney was about to give a snarky remark but then she realised that she truly was not the strongest person in the world when compared to the other guys. [i]Well, they’re clearly from different universes and all, and from pretty violent ones too. My world is clearly better than theirs. If they’re used in fighting for their lives, it means that they have to do so regularly. There might be some organised crime in Johto, but they didn’t cause any casualties.[/i] The girl was about to think that she hadn’t been able to do a thing against them either, but she didn’t continue the thought. [i]It’s irrelevant. I’ve become stronger since then anyway. I’m just used to a bit different atmosphere than this, that’s all![/i] Her face turned stubborn. Whitney was definitely about to defend herself, even though Nobuo hadn’t accused her about anything. But just when she was opening her mouth, Nobuo announced that he was leaving.

“Hey, don’t leave me alone! I’ll come along!” she cried out in an instant. There might be new deadly battles coming up, which definitely made her terrified. But even that was better than being alone in that completely unknown place. Well, not completely alone, she had her team. And Whitney knew that she could always trust in them. It was just the incident in the cave. If there were no other people to worry about, she might be able to defeat any enemy, at least in her thoughts, but the strength wasn’t the problem.

Her hand found Bibarel’s pokéball and grabbed it tightly, but she didn’t release the Pokémon. It was trainer’s responsibility to take good care of their Pokémon and make sure to not push them too hard. Whitney attempted to justice her actions in the cavern by inexperience yet again, but she couldn’t keep away an empty feeling inside her heart. It was almost like her heart was a Paras, something was growing on it, slowly sucking everything from it and taking it over. Paras was a bug-type Pokémon which had a mushroom growing on its back, which drew nutrients from it. Whitney couldn’t recall what Bibarel’s face had looked like when she was about to be burned by the fire of the monster. She couldn’t even recall that Bibarel wasn’t facing her, but was looking at the dragon-creature instead.

“Don’t leave me alone”, she whispered. Her voice trembled a bit and her eyes started to glimmer by tears yet again. Whitney wasn’t sure whether she was talking to Nobuo or Bibarel. Likely to both.